I too have heard of drinking hot tea on a hot day as cooling you off, although I can't remember the source or context. I think it promotes sweating and the sweat cools you off?

It depends on what you want - to be cool or feel cool. (Sounds like a question for middle school kids.) Putting hot liquid into your body adds heat. Not enough to raise your temperature, but it's an increase. So it doesn't make you be cool.

But it does cause the body to shift some blood away from the not warmer core and into the extremities, where you seat a bit more. The increased evaporation make you feel cooler. (And we know - again from middle school - that you might feel cool, but that doesn't make you be cool.)

Unless I'm actually in need of genuine cooling, feeling cool is good enough. And I don't think a cold drink (unimproved by something distilled) soothes like a hot drink.

__________________"Kitchen duty is awarded only to those of manifest excellence..." - The Master, Dogen

I too have heard of drinking hot tea on a hot day as cooling you off, although I can't remember the source or context. I think it promotes sweating and the sweat cools you off?

It falls along the same lines a to why a lot of the equatorial regions/cuisines tend to be spicy. The heat makes things cooler by comparison, sweating cools you off. Pretty simple.

That being said, and having lived in the Uk for some time, having a Sheffield-er for a father, I know it gets "hot" in the UK, but a heat wave is like 80 degrees, lol, and on a 110 degree day in VA, my father will have hot coffee before a cold beverage. . . . . . . screw that. Gimme a slurpee, and an Ice Water, stat! Not like father, like son in that regard.